I’m pleased to say that the pay award for 2024/25 for the majority of our non-teaching staff has now been agreed by national employers and trade unions. Our payroll team is working towards implementing the award in time for the November pay date so staff can receive their backdated pay as soon as possible. You can find out more here.
This week our corporate management team looked at the issue of violence and aggression (V&A) against our staff by members of the public, which has been steadily on the rise over the last three years. Let me say that the council does not tolerate such behaviour and if you are the target of it, or witness a member of staff being abused, please report it to us. Action will be taken. At the moment each service area manages its own training for staff and we do have e-learning packages you can access. But we’re looking to bolster this work by recruiting a dedicated corporate V&A trainer who will bring consistency and further expertise to what we do. They will also develop accredited awareness training programmes tailored to specific roles within our departments. It’ll be more cost-effective as well as provide more consistency on the way we manage this important issue. We hope to have this in place by the start of the new financial year and I’ll keep you updated on progress. As an aside, don’t forget the clocks go back on Sunday, bringing darker evenings with it. So please spare a few minutes to take note of our latest personal safety advice here.
Also, at CMT, we looked at updating our corporate induction arrangements, including eLearning and Teams-based activities for new starters. One point coming out of the staff survey and our recent senior managers group discussions is the need to develop a more consistent approach to induction. Another was that staff wanted senior leaders to be more visible. In taking these points on board, we are, therefore, changing some elements of the induction process. We will include a virtual Chief Executive or Director ‘Town Hall’ event on Teams every quarter, along with a Q&A session. The sessions would be open to all, but mandatory for new starters. Managers will be asked to ensure staff without access to IT will have time and opportunity to join in or cascade the information locally. Any ideas on this are always welcome as, again, through the staff survey it’s clear that we aren’t reaching all front-line staffing groups. Town Hall meetings are a very exciting idea and part of wider engagement and induction changes and I’ll let you know when the first session is planned in plenty of time.
It was great last week to see our library service’s Summer Reading Challenge awards event at the National Waterfront Museum. The teams put a lot of effort into this work and this year more than 2,600 youngsters responded to the challenge, withdrawing 46,548 books. While the challenge is great fun for children, it has a wider impact by maintaining literacy during school holidays, giving young people activities to do as well as being free support for families at a time when finances can be tight.
I’ve got a number of thank-you messages this week to staff who have gone above and beyond to provide good services that have an impact on residents. Well done to our Tree Services team who were praised for their commitment and good humour by a resident who requested a tree be removed from near his home in Caswell Drive. Also thank you to the parks and cleansing team who were applauded by the management group at Trallwn Community Centre for the quality of a major clean-up in the grounds around their building. And congratulations to Greg Matthews in our housing team who was thanked by a tenant for his empathy, dedication and support over a number of years for him, his partner and their two sons with disabilities. If you have stories like these going on in your area, please get in touch with me and I’ll be pleased to share them in my blog.
This week our Revenues and Benefits team have launched a fundraising campaign in support of one of their colleagues, Rachel Davies, who has had to retire on medical grounds due to secondary breast cancer. Rachel and husband Dave, who also works for us, need to raise money for private treatment not funded by the NHS. You can read their story here. If you can contribute to Rachel’s GoFundMe page, please do.
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